The Capitalist: Tardy Tories, Heathrow’s VIP lounge and the ‘shadow DOGE’
Tory time zones, Heathrow’s new VIP lounge and a ‘shadow DOGE’. Catch up on the latest gossip in this week’s edition of The Capitalist
TARDY TORIES
If Reform do manage to oust the Tories from their HQ on Matthew Parker Street, they may wish to check the clocks. Reportedly, Tory aides have taken to working under “KMT” – that’s 30 minutes later than GMT – due to Kemi Badenoch’s impunctuality. That the Tory leader turned up 20 minutes late to her first Cabinet meeting may not seem to inspire confidence, but she can reassure herself that she is in good company among the famously late. Not least Winston Churchill, who admitted that punctuality was among the qualities with which he was “least endowed” when recounting a particularly unfortunate example when he left the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, waiting for an hour at a dinner party. “Do you have an excuse, young man?” the Prince asked him on arrival, to which the future PM replied: “Indeed I have. I started too late.”
CREAM TEA DIPLOMACY
The charge sheet is punchy, with allegations of swearing, shouting, muting colleagues’ microphones and storming out of meetings. This might sound like a fractious WFH Teams call but in fact it describes the conduct of Teignbridge Council in Devon, where conduct has apparently deteriorated to such a degree that advisors from Grant Thornton have been drafted in to help the authority get its house in order. They’ll have their work cut out, as the council’s own Standards Committee hasn’t met for more than 18 months because of ‘issues’ with the behaviour of committee members. The Capitalist is certain that Grant Thornton won’t ever have seen such conduct in the private sector.
GONE TO THE DOG(E)S
Capitalist regular James Watt has piqued our attention again, with the Brewdog ‘Captain’ issuing an update on his latest venture – the ‘Shadow Doge’ – which he has this week decided to “evolve” into “Corgi” – the “Coalition for Organisational Reform and Government Improvement”. Inspired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency across the pond, the brewing bigwig said the venture, which will use FOIs and tipoffs from an “anonymous hotline”, will serve as an “unofficial underground cousin” of the department. The Capitalist rather suspects the service, which, crucially unlike Musk’s, is not government backed, is likely to prove all bark, no bite.
LOADED LOUNGERS
For all the talk of a third runway at Heathrow, The Capitalist is more immediately excited by another upgrade to the airport’s facilities: the refreshed VIP lounge. For a cool £4,000 you can now access (be driven straight to) one of the new luxury Windsor suites beloved by politicians, rock stars and royalty. The discreet cluster of suites have just had a £3m facelift and now come complete with butlers, a Jason Atherton menu and works of art from Picasso to Damien Hirst. Unsurprisingly, those that fork out four grand on a luxury waiting room aren’t about to join the queue for boarding with the plebs; instead they’re driven to the plane while everyone else is still staring at the information screens.
COMMITMENT ISSUES
Turns out it’s not just London’s dating scene that’s in high flux, with new research also revealing that Londoners are among the biggest commitment phobes when it comes to job-hopping. According to Employment Hero, London workers consider 4.7 years the ideal job tenure (compared to the national average of 5.3), while 14 per cent say they are likely to leave a job within two years. But employers, please, there’s no need to beat yourself up about it; as always, it’s not you, it’s them.